Giving a jolt to 45,000 candidates, the Chandigarh Education Department is withdrawing the results of the written tests, held for the recruitment of nursery trained teachers (NTT), junior basic teachers (JBT), and trained graduate teachers (TGT), in view of discrepancies in the answer keys.

An official announcement is expected by Tuesday. Revised results would be announced after making allowance for the errors. The process is likely to take a week.

Finance Secretary Sarvjit Singh said that the exercise was necessary to ensure transparency in the overall selection and appointment process.

Tests to fill 489 posts of JBTs, 103 posts of NTTs and 548 posts of TGTs were held in January and February. The results were declared in April.

For each category, there were two papers. Paper 1, which was general knowledge, was common for all candidates in a category and then there were specific subject papers.

Sources said that the major discrepancy was found between paper 1 of JBT and TGT where three questions were common, but had different answers in the two answer keys.

This led to several candidates filing objections with the Education Department which referred the matter to an expert panel. The Finance Secretary said, “Since the report of the expert panel has come, we are revising the results.”

Director of Public Instructions (Schools) Kamlesh Kumar said, “Fresh results will be declared on the basis of corrected answer keys.”

He said that the selection process, which was held up because of this reason, would be resumed after fresh results. “We hope to appoint new teachers very soon now,” he said.